Comments Elsewhere

Ampersand:

The advantage of your kind of personal attack, Sally – that is, making up bullshit about the person you’re attacking – is that it’s impossible to disprove. I know, because I live in my own skull, that I get pissed off at both misogyny and at anti-fat attitudes. But there’s no way for me to prove it.

I don’t think I’m more rational and restrained than “women,” and of course I’ve never said anything of the kind. I don’t think that “women” as a class are any less rational and restrained than men. (I do think I’m more restrained than many internet posters, regardless of sex.)

Amp, I don’t think that everything that’s been said about your weblog or your moderation policies is fair, but I don’t think that examining your own private reactions or beliefs is the end of the story here. Whether or not, in your own head, you get at least as mad about misogyny as you do about anti-fat attitudes, and whether or not you say “I’m more rational than women” to yourself when you make your remarks, it might turn out that your public remarks and public actions come off to other people as selective or patronizing, without your intending to come off that way. Couldn’t it?